Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s interview with Kommersant newspaper
April 20, 2017
Sergey Ryabkov: "We don’t want to do anything that would inconvenience the other side. We understand that everything related to Russia or relations with Russia is, unfortunately, a source of controversy in the US today, especially in Washington, where the concentration of political thought, which is not always conducive to normalising bilateral ties, is the highest. Far from everything that comes from us is taken neutrally, in a business-like manner by the Americans. On the contrary, much of what we say, write or ask about becomes – to use a word that is common in the US today – toxic. On the whole, however, I believe we have found a form in which we can get our ideas across to the US side. And we received some comments from it. Now our priorities have become clearer. The information security issue that you’ve mentioned is multi-dimensional. It includes fighting cybercrime in the classical sense of the word (say, bank card scams) and encroachments on intellectual property. The Americans have brought in the issue of “political hacking.” It is not a taboo to us, either, even though it was “overheated” by the Obama team’s efforts. We are willing to discuss the entire range of these issues with the Americans. We proposed this dialogue to the previous administration but got no response. Now we have renewed this proposal and hope that the response will be more positive."